MetroArts is a television program entering its sixth season that features artists in and around the Metropolitan Detroit area representing the disciplines of visual, performing, and communication arts. They bring awareness to up-and-coming artists as well as support those artists who have worked in the Metro Detroit area by being arts advocates and taking an active role in their communities.

We’ve had an awesome response to “Blue Lights” so far, and here’s a beautiful example. SoulTracks.com the biggest soul music site on the planet, offered Nadir’s new funk single to their audience as a First Listen. Check it out:

SoulTracks.com says: Working For the Man, J. Nadir Omowale’s 2008 polemical album dropped like a bomb into the political, military and economic upheavals taking place in that year. The urgent and powerful funk of the title track pretty much captured the feelings of every working man and woman at a time when the economy was in free fall, mainly due to the greed and incompetence of the people at the top. The rocking Detroit funk man came back in 2012 with the very good, though less overtly political The Book of Jonah, and in the year 2017, Nadir has returned.

A lot transpired – particularly in the fraught relationship between law enforcement and minority communities – between 2012 and 2017, and Nadir has something to say.

Nice and Rough: A Night with Steffanie and Tina
Rock Goddess Will Pay Homage to Icon’s Legacy
Wednesday, November 23 at The Charles H. Wright Museum

DETROIT, MI: Rock artist, and Detroit native Steffanie Christi’anwill honor industry icon, Tina Turner during a tribute concert,Nice and Rough: A Night with Steffanie and Tina on Wednesday, November 23, 2016, 8:00 p.m. inside the General Motors Theatre at the historical Charles H. Wright Museum of African-AmericanHistory.Tickets are available at SteffChris.Eventbrite.com. Christi’an and her dynamic nine-piece band, will perform a variety of favorites from Turner’s vast catalog of music along with selection’s from Christi’an’s powerful debut album Way Too Much plus material from her upcoming release, It’s Complicated. Sponsored by Black Women Rock!, Distorted Soul and Bling UniverCity, the show promises to be an incomparable experience of pure rock, funk and soul.

Tina Turner is the Queen of Rock and Roll, and one of the world’s top-selling music artists of all time, and is the most successful female Rock ‘n’ Roll artist, receiving eleven Grammy Awards. Turner has also sold more concert tickets than any other solo performer in history. Her combined album and single sales total approximately 100 million copies worldwide, making her one of the biggest selling females in music history. She’s also an inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one half of Ike and Tina Turner. Christian’s show celebrates Tina’s 77th birthday on November 26th.

Rare is the artist whose presence is so magnificent that it markets itself. Rock Goddess, Steffanie Christi’an enters stage left to capture and captivate your starved soul. She stalks any stage on which she steps, making audiences her docile prey. This gifted singer/songwriter mesmerizes with her infinite energy, fiery passion and hypnotic vocals. Christi’an has performed internationally and locally at numerous events including a recent tour of France with the Black Rock Coalition Orchestra, performances with jessica Care moore’s Black Women Rock! in Detroit, and at the historic Apollo Theatre in Harlem, the Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama with Talib Kweli and Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music in New York City. Her new album, It’s Complicated is due out on BlingUniverCity, early 2017.

It’s no secret that she is one of Christi’an’s primary inspirations. Steffanie’s robust vocals often channel Tina’s aura. “A few years ago, I performed a medley of Tina Turner songs at a Black Women Rock! concert and it went over so well! Ever since that show, people have been telling me, they would love to see me sing more of Tina’s music on a larger scale and I thought this was the perfect time. When I was a little girl watching Tina Turner on MTV, it was life changing for me. Here was this black women strutting and singing Rock & Roll. Those moments had an indelible impact on me and who I am as an artist,” says Steffanie.

What an incredible event this was! The breadth and depth of talent in this state is unsurpassed! Those who attended heard an awesome array of Michigan music from Jackie Wilson to the White Stripes, from Stevie Wonder to J Dilla, from Mitch Ryder to Brainstorm, as well as a host of magnificent new compositions. Like the State Fair itself, this was a celebration of the best Michigan has to offer. [Read more…]